99% Uplift: Payment Plans Drive Luxtripper Conversions
Luxtripper aimed to improve its overall conversion rate, optimise marketing spend, and lower the cost per lead by focusing on rapid development.
To increase conversions and enhance user engagement, we explored the effect of prominently displaying payment plan options
My Role
As the Lead UX Designer, I was responsible for driving user research, competitor analysis, and hypothesis formation. I collaborated closely with cross-functional teams including product managers, developers, and data analysts to define test parameters, implement design changes, and test the viability of this new hypothesis through data-driven experiments.
Client
Luxtripper
Year
2022
Project Scope
Mobile-first redesign
Identifying user hurdles
Delivery for peak traffic
Continual optimisation
Tools
Figma, Userbrain, Mixpanel, Google analytics, Miro, Jira, slack
Business Objective: Luxtripper wanted to increase high-value conversions on luxury holiday packages. However, while premium package pages attracted high traffic, conversion rates remained low.
The “Deals” page received high volumes of traffic, especially for premium packages like honeymoons and “once-in-a-lifetime” trips. While there was strong interest in luxury offerings, it raised questions about user behaviour, why were users engaging with these pages but not converting? Were they exploring options, comparing costs, or facing barriers to booking?
Low conversion rates on high-cost packages prompted us to investigate potential barriers to booking. At this stage, it was unclear whether affordability, lack of clarity, or other factors were impacting user decisions. This highlighted the need for further research to understand user behaviour better and identify opportunities to improve conversions.
To better understand user behaviour, we conducted research focused on decision-making factors for milestone trips. This included interviews with potential users and quantitative analysis of site analytics. Through this process, we identified four key user segments.
Users showed clear interest in premium travel packages, but affordability appeared to be a concern preventing commitment.
Desire for Flexible Payments
Many users expressed an interest in flexible payment options. Some mentioned that if they knew they could pay in instalments or secure their trip with a deposit, they would feel more confident moving forward with a booking.
Limited Awareness of Payment Options
Users were often unaware that Luxtripper offered any payment flexibility. In user’s minds, payment plans were associated with budget travel brands, not luxury experiences.
Synthesis
User Research: Identifying Affordability Concerns
We conducted a series of unmoderated user interviews with aspirational luxury travellers. The focus was on understanding their concerns and decision-making process when considering significant trips, such as honeymoons, anniversaries, and special celebrations. We found that many users were highly interested in booking these premium packages but hesitated due to financial concerns and the perceived inability to afford such high-cost trips all at once.
Hypothesis:
Based on these insights, we hypothesised that displaying flexible payment plan options more prominently would increase user engagement and lead to higher conversion rates, particularly among aspirational luxury travellers who might be deterred by the upfront cost of high-end holidays.
Competitor Analysis: Insights from the “Bucket and Spade” Market
While luxury competitors did not widely advertise payment plans, we noticed that lower-cost holiday providers (often referred to as the “bucket and spade” market) prominently featured instalment options on their sites.
This approach aimed to make vacations feel financially accessible to a wider audience, and it seemed to resonate well with their budget-conscious customer base.
In addition to user interviews and competitor analysis, we reviewed site analytics and user behaviour data to build a robust case for this approach:
Heavy Traffic on Deals Page: Our analytics confirmed that users were actively browsing for deals, further supporting the idea that many were price-conscious but interested in luxury experiences.
Conversion Funnel Analysis: Reviewing the conversion funnel for high-cost packages showed a drop-off between viewing and inquiring, suggesting affordability might be an unspoken barrier.
We quickly created several mock-ups to explore how we might communicate our payment plan options, ranging from dedicated pages explaining the plans to search features based on monthly amounts.
While there were numerous directions we could pursue, we aimed to assess whether payment plans influenced purchase intent without making a large development investment. We also wanted to give our pay plan execution the widest level of exposure to the largest audience we could, meaning introducing dedicated pages was a no-go, given only a small percentage of users were likely to explore them.
We also explored adding a pay monthly price but given the nature of the complex itineraries and the nature of some flight carriers needing full payment upfront depending on departure dates, technically it would be a huge undertaking for something we still needed to validate. We began to look at what was the quickest/cheapest way to test if affordability was indeed a blocker to users.
To test our hypothesis, we designed a reusable component that clearly communicated the availability of payment plans generically. Key elements of this implementation, are super simple and would help us quickly test our theory.
By incorporating simple iconography and clear, concise messaging in a prominent location, we increased the visibility of our payment plan offering. This approach minimised development effort and allowed us to test whether highlighting payment plans would resonate with users.
The benefits of increasing the uptake of payment plans
⸺ Increased Leads
Highlighting payment plans may boost leads and potentially increase the average basket value as customers may be more willing to spend knowing they can pay over time.
⸺ Targeted Promotion
We can selectively promote payment plans to channels with aspirational audiences.
⸺ Extended Booking Time
Encouraging payment plans could lengthen the time from booking to departure, providing more opportunities for cross-selling.
After implementing the payment plan messaging, we tracked the results for 30 days. The A/B test showed a significant 99% uplift in conversion rates for users in the variant group (user who saw the payment option messaging) compared to the control group:
Increase in Inquiries: Overall inquiries for high-cost packages increased by over 150% in the variant group.
Notable Lift Across Key Metrics: We observed lifts of over 100% in various stages of the booking funnel, from initial inquiries to quote requests.
High Confidence in Results: With 100% confidence in most metrics, the test results strongly indicated that making payment options visible positively impacted user behaviour.
This test resulted in a remarkable 99% uplift in conversions, demonstrating how simplicity and user-centred design can drive significant outcomes. By leveraging data to identify high-traffic pages and user hurdles, validating insights through unmoderated feedback, and keeping development efforts minimal, we uncovered and capitalised on a major opportunity.
The success of this initiative highlights the importance of integrating both quantitative and qualitative data into the design process and ensuring product features address user needs.
Although Luxtripper had always offered payment plans, users were unaware of this until making an enquiry. By improving visibility, we bridged a critical gap in the user journey with one of the simplest yet most impactful features the company ever developed
